India's Bay-Forge Plans Capacity Expansion for Open Die Forgings and Seamless Rolled Rings

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Bay-Forge India (Chennai, Tamil Nadu), the Indian subsidiary of the Fomas Group (Osnago, Italy), recently announced plans to ramp up production of open die forgings and seamless rolled rings for use in several sectors, including aerospace, defense, nuclear and thermal power generation, and oil and gas. Bay-Forge is targeting an overall production capacity of 14,000 tons of open die forgings and rings in 2009, with plans to double production capacity for both the products. The Fomas Group has earmarked funds of $326 million towards expansion programs worldwide and has set aside $26 million for investment in Bay-Forge from 2008 to 2012.

As part of the company's expansion program, Bay-Forge recently unveiled a new 2,000-ton forging press fitted with an integrated manipulator to increase the production capacity of open die forgings at its manufacturing unit in Chennai. The firm produced about 8,000 tons of finished products in 2008. The Chennai plant also contains a 3,500-ton forging press used to manufacture larger forgings and rings. The firm's ring-rolling mill in Chennai produces seamless rolled rings 5.5 meters in diameter and 20 tons in weight.

The firm's plant in Chennai is currently equipped with 12 oil- and gas-fired furnaces with capacities ranging from 20 tons to 100 tons. The facility also has four electrical furnaces to produce aluminum-titanium and special alloys and houses a machine shop equipped with horizontal lathes, vertical lathes and milling machines. Bay-Forge intends to enhance production capacity of the plant through investment in seven furnaces and additional machining facilities. The plant will become the sole manufacturing hub for open die-cast products weighing up to 20 tons that will be exported to global customers of the Fomas Group. In the next five years, the capacity of the plant will be increased to manufacture open die-cast products weighing up to 50 tons.

Bay-Forge has a 19-year sole-supplier contract with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) (Trivandrum, Kerala), a part of the Indian Space Research Organization (Bangalore, Karnataka), which develops space vehicles for the country's satellite program. Bay-Forge has executed orders worth $4.3 million for VSSC since 2005 and has supplied over 1,000 seamless rolled rings for the Chandrayaan space program, India's first mission to the moon. Bay-Forge's client list includes several domestic and international industry leaders such as Alstom SA (EPA:ALO) (Levallois-Perret, France), Bhabha Atomic Research Center (Mumbai), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BOM:500103) (Mumbai), Defence Research & Development Laboratory (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (Bangalore, Karnataka), Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany), and Toshiba Machine Company Limited (TYO:6104) (Tokyo, Japan).

Bay-Forge generated revenues of $28.62 million in 2008. The company is targeting an overall growth of 45% and is looking to double earnings to 20% in 2009. The firm has developed a land bank of 65 acres in Chennai and intends to develop its local manufacturing unit as an export hub. The Indian market for open die forgings is primarily driven by demand in the aerospace and power sectors and is estimated to be over 80,000 tons. The export market for open die forgings is estimated to exceed 45,000 tons over the next four years.

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